I don't need no stinking tire!!!

Well, where do I start about this one? It could be the fact that I was hesitant to do this race in the first place. Imagine doing the Vision Quest but take out all the fun descents and you get The Traverse. Then take the fact that it was a 100 degrees outside. Or could it be that I had to ride down Trabuco trail on my Mavic SLR rim.
The race started off well because I was riding smart. The race was literally 3 1/2 hours of climbing with a 15 min. descent. My plan was to pace myself to Four Corners and then hammer everything from there. It was all going according to plan until I sliced the side wall on my tire beyond just a simple patch and I couldn't do anything to fix it. So what else was I going to do but ride the rim!!! My hat goes off to Mavic . I don't know any other wheel that could take that abuse with out just folding in half. I will definitely continue to ride their wheel sets.


I wanted to finish the race in 4:20 but with my bad luck I finished in 4:45. I was 7th in my age group and 14th overall.